CALIFORNIA
Ritual candles blamed in fire
Los Angeles Daily News
ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST -- The Curve fire that has consumed more than 16,000 acres in the Angeles National Forest was started by candles used in a ritual involving animal sacrifice, U.S. Forest officials said late Wednesday.
Other news agencies:
Animal Sacrifice Ritual Sparked L.A. Fire-Officials, Reuters

Leader of liberation theology movement dead at 81
The Associated Press
PALO ALTO -- Robert McAfee Brown, a Presbyterian theologian who bridged tensions between Protestants and Catholics and became one of the best-known advocates of the liberation theology movement, has died. He was 81.

ILLINOIS
Man claimed to be alien, wife testifies
The Chicago Sun-Times
David Teran, on trial for murder in the death of a onetime Proviso East High School basketball star, calmly confessed that he gunned down a stranger in an Addison parking lot because he believed the killing would release an "alien enzyme" in his body, allowing him to board a spaceship coming to pluck him off Earth, his ex-wife testified Friday.

INDIANA
Alleged molester leads Amish sect
The Associated Press
HOLLAND -- A man accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy heads up a dissident Amish sect whose members regard him as their spiritual leader and life counselor, authorities say.

TENNESSEE
Sexual Abuse Allegations Within Jehovah's Witness Denomination
WKRN.COM
There are new allegations that a religious denomination is turning a blind eye to sexual abuse. This time, it is the Jehovah's Witnesses who stand accused.

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TEXAS
Wiccan fighting dress code;
Waxahachie officials say teen's pentacle necklace could be disruptive
The Dallas Morning News
WAXAHACHIE -- Rebecca Moreno chose to hide her pentacle necklace under her blouse Wednesday instead of getting kicked out of school for violating the high school dress code.
Other news agencies:
Student fights to wear Wiccan necklace, The Associated Press

UTAH
Police, Archaeologists Wary of Psychics' Theory of Smart Mystery
The Salt Lake Tribune
The months-old search for Elizabeth Smart took a strange twist last week when two Salt Lake City detectives -- at the behest of a group of psychics -- ventured into a crypt that holds the skeletal remains of ancient American Indians.

Not all LDS temples to get an Angel Moroni;
The metal statues draw attention - and lightning
Deseret News
The addition of an Angel Moroni statue to the 30-year-old Ogden LDS Temple later this year doesn't mean the church will add statues to the tops of all its existing temples.

Mark Hofmann says he forged 'rare' penny;
'$25,000' coin was authenticated by the U.S. Secret Service
Deseret News
Last July, Mark Hofmann wrote a letter from prison. Written in what is apparently his real handwriting these days - a backward slant of printed letters - it includes an admission by Utah's infamous forger. A rare penny soon to be auctioned in California, Hofmann told a family member, is a fake he created with "an electroplating process."

AUSTRALIA
Psychic voted off Survivor show
BBC News
Psychic Uri Geller has become the first contestant to be voted out of the Australian jungle on the ITV1 show I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

CANADA
Jehovah's Witness teen lived life on her own terms, until her dying day
The Canadian Press
CALGARY -- Barely two, Bethany Hughes hadn't learned how to walk but she knew exactly how to get a toy back from her eight-year-old sister.<
Other news agencies:
Calgary girl who fought blood transfusions for leukemia dies in hospital, The Canadian Press

Dad of Alberta girl who fought transfusions lashes out at Jehovah's Witnesses
The Canadian Press
EDMONTON -- The grieving father of a 17-year-old Jehovah's Witness girl who died of leukemia says he intends to sue the religious group, claiming it destroyed his family and caused his daughter to fight against blood transfusions.

FRANCE
Siege as French apocalypse cult plans voyage to Venus
The Scotsman
Gendarmes have surrounded members of a French sect in the western town of Nantes over fears the group may commit mass suicide next month when they believe the end of the world is nigh.

GEORGIA
Keeping the faith, forcefully
The Baltimore Sun
TBILISI -- He claims inspiration from God, but foes say the defrocked Orthodox priest is an apostle of violence. Dressed in flowing purple robes and wearing a silver cross studded with red stones, Basil Mkalavishvili says he is merely defending the Georgian Orthodox faith of his ancestors from "Satanists."

INDIA
Pilgrims flock to 'divine potato'
Ananova
Pilgrims are flocking to a house in Bombay where they believe that Elephant headed Hindu Lord Ganesha has appeared in the shape of a potato.

KENYA
Mungiki Sect Group Arrested for Causing Road Chaos
The Nation
Four members of the banned Mungiki sect were yesterday arrested for barricading the Embu-Makutano road in Kirinyaga. Several others escaped when police swooped on more than 60 Mungiki members who had taken control of the route at the Ngurumbani bus stage.

RUSSIA
Truth Seekers Flock to Give Mystical Komi Twins a Flip
The Moscow Times
The twins, or dvoinyashki, are a divination tool based on the ancient beliefs of the Komi, a Uralic people whose home is in the sparsely populated Komi-Permyatsky autonomous district, not far from Perm.

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